Crafter Studio Navigation Menu Plugin Example

The Navigation Menu contains tools that are used for daily activities by users. For more information on the Navigation Menu, see here

Let’s take a look at an example of creating a Navigation Menu plugin in Studio using a project called My Editorial created using the Website Editorial blueprint.

1. The first thing we have to do is to create the folder structure where we will be placing the JS file for our navigation menu project plugin. We’ll follow the convention listed in UI Plugin Directory Structure. For our example, CATEGORY is navmenu and the NAME is test-navmenu

   In a local folder, create the descriptor file for your project plugin craftercms-plugin.yaml with the plugin.id set to org.craftercms.plugin.examplenavmenu, then create the following folder structure:

   Plugin Directory Structure

   <plugin-folder>/
     craftercms-plugin.yaml
     authoring/
       static-assets/
         plugins/
           org/
             craftercms/
               plugin/
                 examplenavmenu/
                   navmenu/
                     test-navmenu/
   

   
   

   We will be placing the JS file implementing the toolbar project plugin under the test-navmenu folder For our example, the <plugin-folder> is located here: /users/myuser/myplugins/navmenu-plugin

2. We’ll create the JavaScript file for our plugin by following the instructions in the plugin example here which will generate the index.js file.

   Inside the test-navmenu folder, create two empty files, index.css and script.js, and place the index.js file in it.

3. To setup our navigation menu project plugin to be automatically wired in the corresponding configuration file in Studio (which for the navigation menu, is the User Interface Configuration file) during the installation, add the following to your craftercms-plugin.yaml descriptor file

   craftercms-plugin.yaml

   installation:
     - type: preview-app
       parentXpath: //widget[@id='craftercms.components.Launcher']
       elementXpath: //plugin[@id='org.craftercms.sampleNavMenuPlugin.components.reactComponent']
       element:
         name: configuration
         children:
         - name: widgets
           children:
           - name: widget
             children:
             - name: configuration
               children:
               - name: widgets
                 children:
                 - name: widget
                   attributes:
                   - name: id
                     value: org.craftercms.sampleNavMenuPlugin.components.reactComponent
                   children:
                   - name: plugin
                     attributes:
                     - name: id
                       value: org.craftercms.plugin.examplenavmenu
                     - name: type
                       value: navmenu
                     - name: name
                       value: test-navmenu
                     - name: file
                       value: index.js
   
    |
   

   Remember to use the same value used in plugin.id (found at the top of the descriptor file) for the installation section plugin.id which for our example is org.craftercms.plugin

4. After placing your plugin files and setting up auto-wiring, the project plugin may now be installed for testing/debugging using the crafter-cli command copy-plugin.

   
   
   

   When running a crafter-cli command, the connection to CrafterCMS needs to be setup via the add-environment command. Once the connection has been established, we can now install the plugin to the project my-editorial by running the following:

   ./crafter-cli copy-plugin -e local -s my-editorial --path /users/myuser/myplugins/navmenu-plugin
   

   
   

5. Let’s take a look at our plugin in action by clicking on the Navigation Menu icon on the top right:

   
   
   

   Here’s the auto-wired section in the configuration after installing the plugin:

   <siteUi>
     ...
     <widget id="craftercms.components.Launcher">
       <configuration>
         <widgets>
           <widget id="craftercms.components.LauncherSection">
             <configuration>
               <title id="launcher.siteSectionTitle">
                 <defaultMessage><![CDATA[
                                     Site <muted>• {siteName}</muted>]]></defaultMessage>
               </title>
               <widgets>
                 <widget id="craftercms.components.LauncherLinkTile">
                   <configuration>
                     <title id="words.dashboard" defaultMessage="Dashboard"/>
                     <systemLinkId>siteDashboardDialog</systemLinkId>
                     <icon id="@mui/icons-material/DashboardRounded"/>
                   </configuration>
                 </widget>
                 ...
                 <widget id="craftercms.components.LauncherPublishingStatusTile"/>
                 <widget id="org.craftercms.sampleNavMenuPlugin.components.reactComponent">
                   <plugin id="org.craftercms.plugin.examplenavmenu"
                           type="navmenu"
                           name="test-navmenu"
                           file="index.js"/>
                 </widget>
                 ...